Quick Links

How The Web Pages were One

These web pages have gone through a number of interations.
This Web Page
documents the story.

Context

I have a range of computers. Keeping track of them (and
maintaining them!) can be a headache. So I've started compiling
a list of current machines. There are also a number of web
servers (such as the one you are reading right now on
www.ajh.co@wolseley). Here is a list of the
computers/servers, their URLs, DNS sites, use and model:

Hints and Fixes

Mail Folder Sort Order not maintained

My (Mac OSX) mail folders suddenly started being displayed in
non-alpha order whenever I added a new folder. I'm not the
only person to notice this - there is an Apple Disscussion
Thread on it. The original
page is available, but in case it disappears, I've saved
a copy.

Invisible files

When I first obtained a Mac, using (IIRC) Mac OS 3.1 or
thereabouts, my son discovered that there was a resource fork
bit that made files invisible. He delighted in changing that
bit on files that I used, so I rapidly discovered how to unset
it again. That facility is still there in OS X, so I have
documented that little lurk to avoid any future mischief.

To make a file invisible:

$ /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V file-name

(upper case V)

To make a file visible:

$ /Developer/Tools/SetFile -a v file-name

(lower case v)

Safari Plug-Ins

I installed/updated my Adobe reader, and the next time I used
Safari, it asked me if I wanted to install the Adobe plug-in
to make Safari use the Adobe reader for PDF files. I said yes
at the time, but after a bit of use, found it too slow.
Granted, it does have more features, but not the one I wanted,
which was to open it up outside the browser. With the
standard Preview option, this was just a right-mouse pull down
"Open in Preview", very convenient. But how to get back to
Preview?

A bit of Googling revealed the answer. In Tiger (10.4) and
Leopard (10.5), there is a folder /Library/Internet
Plug-Ins/ that contains all the plug-ins. Remove the one
called AdobePDFViewer.plugin, restart Safari, and you
are back with Preview.

And while on the subject of Safari, here's how to change the
default browser preference:

OpenOffice recovery documents

When Open Office (version 3) "loses" its recovery
files, and keeps asking to recover (non-existent) files, edit
the file:
/Users/ajh/Library/ApplicationSupport/OpenOffice.org/3/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office/Recovery.xcu
to delete the element nodes containing the offending
file path. Then save this file, and restart OpenOffice.

Finding out the screen resolution

I run a number of different displays, and when starting up
various programs I need to know the current screen
resolution. This little script does the trick:

Apple's X11 Cut and Paste

Apple did a Great Thing in making X11 available as part of OS
X, but it was always going to be a difficult task, given the
different "look and feel" of the two user interfaces. To
try and fix the inconsistency between the OS X cut and paste,
and X11's cut and paste, check out this
Fix for Apple's X11 Cut and Paste

Keyboard Shortcuts on Booting

Automatically changing the Desktop Picture in Snow Leopard

I had a cool little script that changed the desktop background
picture (aka wallpaper) automatically, according to parameters
stored in an XML file. See this Multithreaded Image
Viewer for details. Most of it was pretty plain python
programming (I even set it as an exercise in concurrent
programming one year), but it relied upon a shell script
setBackground.sh that used an Applescript script to do
the actual picture change via a set desktop picture to file
MyPicFile.

But then it broke in Snow Leopard, for reasons I do not
understand. Attempts to find how to do this task via much
Googling also proved fruitless. While fiddling around with the
standard Apple Change Desktop Background pop-up memu, I hit on
the idea of having a folder with only one image in it, and
setting the reload time to 5 seconds, the shortest reload
time.

I used a soft link without thinking about why. It could be a
hard link, I guess.

(20100330:094441) And this is not perfect by any means. It
breaks on my laptop when I put it to sleep, or change locations,
or both, or neither (hard to say which, since it seems very
erratic!) Every so often I have to invoke "Change Desktop
Background", and reselect the folder in which the temporary item
is placed.

(20101216:160200) The behaviour in Snow Leopard is now
consistent with Leopard again. I don't know what happened,
but I now use the script identified at the beginning of this
item. I'm keeping the rest of the story here just in case.

Filename extensions

I noticed while using Keynote that my filename extensions were
getting thrown away. I was not the only one to be puzzled by this
behaviour, so I thought I should comment on the fix required.

Go to the Finder Preferences, and click the Advanced tab.
Under Snow Leopard, the top check box should be "Show all filename
extensions". If this is unchecked, click it, and your filename
extensions will magically reappear!

For some reason, Apple appears to have changed the default
value on this from Leopard to Snow Leopard, leaving many users
puzzled as to what is going on.

Fixing the X11 "Focus Follows Mouse" hassle

In a terminal, type:

defaults write org.x.X11 wm_ffm -bool true

and then restart X11.

Unix Stuff

Moving to Ubuntu

I got the irrits with Apple and have sworn not to buy a new
system or upgrade the systems I have, preferring instead to move
(back) to Linux as necessity demands. But Ubuntu has its own
irrits, too! This is a log of things that I have fixed.

Virtual desktops

The hassle is that there is no clear way of driving the
number of them, and how to switch between them.

Setting Up

Go into the System Settings > Appearance > Behaviour,
and check the box "Enable workspaces". This sets up the
default 2x2 workspaces.

Changing the Number of Workspaces

Make sure that "CompizConfig Settings Manager" is
installed (use the "Ubuntu Software Centre" to search for
and install this). Then follow General Options > Desktop
Size, and set the Horizontal Virtual Size and Vertical
Virtual Size to your preferences. Close the CCSM.

Showing the Virtual Desktops

You show see an icon in the launcher that looks like
this one (it may have a background colour to match the
launcher). If you click this icon, a representation of the
workspaces available will be shown. Click it again to
dismiss, or click inside any of the workspaces to switch to
that workspace.

Keyboard Shortcut to Switch Workspace

CTRL-ALT-arrow will change to the next workspace in the
direction of arrow.